World Rat Day (04/04)

Every year on April 4, since 2003, the unusual holiday – World Rat Day has been celebrated, created to draw attention to this extraordinary animal and designed to unite lovers of ornamental rats around the world.

The idea of establishing this Day belongs to American rat breeders, who thus decided to honor their tailed pets, decorative rats, and then this idea was picked up by rat breeders from other countries. The date April 4 was chosen due to the fact that this is the day the ratlist – of the oldest Internet resource dedicated to ornamental rats began working.

It may seem strange to some that so much attention is paid to the rat, but it is worth recalling that, for example, in the Chinese calendar a whole year is dedicated to it (the Year of the Rat). It is not for nothing that she is considered a very smart and dexterous animal with a cheerful disposition and amazing vitality. Lovers of decorative rats consider them not only tender, sociable, curious and friendly animals, but also literally members of their family, inevitably attractive…

By the way, scientists often compare a rat to a human – because our genomes are 95% similar (!), and they live the same way as us: they fight to the last when it comes to surviving or preserving offspring, learn from their own mistakes, even fall in love and dream like people. Scientists have recently proven that in addition to squeaking, rats communicate with each other using ultrasonic signals inaudible to the human ear, of which, as it turned out, there are tens of thousands, which indicates a rich vocabulary for these animals. And rats can sympathize…

But it is worth recalling that today we are talking specifically about ornamental, domestic, rats, which differ from wild ones only in that they were raised in captivity in a certain generation (by the way, England is considered the «homeland of these pets). This means that such a rat is smart, like a wild rat and affectionate, like a domestic animal, but to a certain extent, of course. It is no secret that many animals were used by doctors as laboratory animals many centuries ago, and the talents of laboratory rats did not pass by human attention. For example, for the first time in the world, rats entered the circus arena in Russia – thanks to the Durov brothers: it was they who began to demonstrate trained albino rats. And then these animals began to be sold in «bird» markets and pet stores, and today there are rat lovers clubs and rat nurseries all over the world.

World Rat Day – is another reason to pamper your favorites (Photo: Igor Normann, licensed by Shutterstock.com)

Ornamental rats are easily tamed, do not show aggression towards humans, and bite only in extreme situations. But still, for the most part, society is biased towards this animal – long centuries of «cold war» rats and humans were not in vain. Therefore, today's date – is an opportunity to talk about the uniqueness of these animals, dispel existing prejudices in society regarding domestic rats and urge them to be more tolerant of these tailed neighbors.

In addition, World Rat Day – is another reason for all lovers of these animals to spend time with rat-catcher friends, talk about their pets, give them special gifts or goodies and capture their satisfied faces for their descendants. And some even hold various festivals, exhibitions and parties on this day, the main character of which is rats, and where they try to show as many people as possible the « merits» of these cute animals and also remind them that getting a rat just like that – does not make sense. A rat is not a toy or entertainment, it is a living creature.

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